7 Steps to Create Lead Generating Content Marketing
Content marketing is a powerful way to attract and convert prospects into customers. But how do you create content that generates leads and drives sales? In this article, we will share seven steps to create lead generating content marketing that works.
Key Takeaways
Define your target audience and buyer persona.
Conduct keyword research and topic ideation.
Create a content calendar and outline.
Write engaging and valuable content.
Optimize your content for SEO.
Promote your content on multiple channels.
Measure and analyze your content performance.
Step 1:
Define your target audience and buyer persona. Before you create any content, you need to know who you are writing for and what their pain points, goals, challenges, and interests are. A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer based on market research and data. You can use tools like HubSpot’s Make My Persona or Xtensio’s User Persona Creator to create your buyer persona.
Step 2:
Conduct keyword research and topic ideation. Once you have your buyer persona, you need to find out what keywords and topics they are searching for online. Keyword research helps you identify the words and phrases that your audience uses to find information related to your product or service. You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Moz Keyword Explorer, or SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool to find relevant keywords and their search volume, competition, and difficulty.
Topic ideation is the process of generating content ideas based on your keywords. You can use tools like BuzzSumo, AnswerThePublic, or Quora to find popular and trending topics that your audience is interested in.
Step 3:
Create a content calendar and outline. A content calendar is a plan that helps you organize and schedule your content creation and distribution. It helps you align your content with your marketing goals, audience needs, and business objectives. You can use tools like CoSchedule, Trello, or Airtable to create and manage your content calendar.
An outline is a blueprint that helps you structure and organize your content. It helps you define the main points, subheadings, examples, data, and call-to-action of your content. You can use tools like Workflowy, MindMeister, or Evernote to create and edit your outline.
Step 4:
Write engaging and valuable content. Writing engaging and valuable content is the core of content marketing. You need to write content that captures your audience’s attention, provides useful information, solves their problems, and persuades them to take action. You can use tools like Grammarly, Hemingway, or ProWritingAid to check and improve your writing quality.
Some tips to write engaging and valuable content are:
- Use a catchy headline that sparks curiosity and interest.
- Use a hook in the introduction that grabs the reader’s attention and explains the benefit of reading the content.
- Use storytelling techniques to make your content more relatable and memorable.
- Use bullet points, subheadings, images, videos, charts, graphs, and other visual elements to break up the text and make it easier to read.
- Use statistics, facts, quotes, testimonials, case studies, and other forms of social proof to back up your claims and build trust.
- Use simple and clear language that speaks directly to your audience.
- Use emotional triggers to appeal to your audience’s pain points, desires, fears, or aspirations.
- Use a clear and compelling call-to-action that tells the reader what to do next.
Step 5:
Optimize your content for SEO. SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of improving your content’s visibility and ranking on search engines like Google. Optimizing your content for SEO helps you drive more organic traffic and leads to your website. You can use tools like Yoast SEO, Rank Math, or All in One SEO to optimize your content for SEO.
Some tips to optimize your content for SEO are:
- Use your main keyword in the title, URL, meta description, headings, and body of your content.
- Use related keywords and synonyms throughout your content to avoid keyword stuffing and increase relevance.
- Use internal links to connect your content with other relevant pages on your website.
- Use external links to cite authoritative sources and provide additional value to your readers.
- Use alt text to describe your images for accessibility and SEO purposes.
- Use schema markup to add structured data to your content for better search engine understanding and display.
Step 6:
Promote your content on multiple channels. Creating great content is not enough if no one sees it. You need to promote your content on multiple channels to reach a wider audience and generate more leads. You can use tools like Buffer, Hootsuite, or Sprout Social to manage and automate your social media promotion.
Some tips to promote your content on multiple channels are:
- Choose the right channels for your audience and goals. For example, if you want to reach professionals and decision-makers, LinkedIn might be a better option than Instagram.
- Tailor your message and format for each channel. For example, if you want to share a blog post on Twitter, you might want to use a short teaser with a link rather than a long summary with an image.
- Encourage engagement and interaction with your content. For example, you can ask questions, invite feedback, run polls, or host contests to spark conversations and build relationships with your audience.
- Repurpose your content into different formats and mediums. For example, you can turn a blog post into a video, a podcast, an infographic, a slideshow, or a webinar to reach different audiences and preferences.
Step 7:
Measure and analyze your content performance. Measuring and analyzing your content performance is essential to understand what works and what doesn’t, and to improve your content marketing strategy. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or HubSpot to track and report your content performance.
Some metrics to measure and analyze your content performance are:
- Traffic: The number of visitors who view your content.
- Engagement: The number of likes, comments, shares, and other interactions with your content.
- Leads: The number of visitors who provide their contact information in exchange for your content or offer.
- Conversion: The number of leads who become customers or take the desired action after consuming your content.
- Revenue: The amount of money generated by your content.
Tips
- Know your audience and their needs, goals, challenges, and interests.
- Create content that provides value, solves problems, educates, entertains, or inspires.
- Use keywords and topics that match your audience’s search intent and queries.
- Use a variety of formats and mediums to appeal to different preferences and learning styles.
- Promote your content on multiple channels where your audience hangs out.
- Measure and analyze your content performance to improve your strategy.
Lead Generating Content Marketing: A Statistical Report
Content marketing is a powerful strategy for generating leads and driving business growth. According to a survey by BrightTALK, 53% of marketers spend at least half of their budget on lead generation, and 83% of them use content marketing for this purpose. But what are the trends and statistics that show the global demand and effectiveness of content marketing in lead generation? In this blog post, we will explore some of the most relevant data and insights for 2023.
Content Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing
One of the main advantages of content marketing is that it costs less and generates more leads than outbound marketing. Outbound marketing refers to traditional methods of reaching out to potential customers, such as cold calls, direct mail, or ads. Content marketing, on the other hand, involves creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and engaging content that attracts and educates the target audience.
According to Demand Metric, content marketing generates over 3x as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less. Moreover, HubSpot reports that content marketing has a 13x higher ROI than outbound marketing. This means that content marketing not only saves money but also delivers better results.
Content Marketing Trends and Best Practices
Content marketing is constantly evolving and adapting to the changing needs and preferences of the audience. In order to succeed in content marketing, marketers need to stay updated on the latest trends and best practices. Here are some of the most important ones for 2023:
- Video content is the most preferred form of content by the audience. According to Wyzowl, 73% of people prefer to learn about a product or service from a short video, while only 11% prefer to read a text-based article, website, or post. Video content is also more likely to be shared, commented on, and remembered by the viewers.
- Content quality is more important than quantity. HubSpot states that 83% of marketers agree that it is better to focus on quality rather than quantity of content, even if it means posting less often. Quality content is defined as content that is original, relevant, informative, engaging, and optimized for SEO.
- Content personalization is key to increasing conversions. Personalization refers to tailoring the content to the specific needs, interests, and preferences of each individual customer. According to eMarketer, personalized content can boost sales by 20%, build relationships with customers by 56%, and increase brand awareness by 68%.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is lead generating content marketing?
A: Lead generating content marketing is the process of creating and distributing valuable and relevant content that attracts and nurtures prospects into leads and customers.
Q: What are the benefits of lead generating content marketing?
A: Lead generating content marketing can help you:
- Increase brand awareness and authority
- Build trust and credibility with your audience
- Educate and inform your prospects about your product or service
- Solve their problems and address their pain points
- Influence their purchase decisions and loyalty
Q: What are the types of lead generating content marketing?
A: Lead generating content marketing can take various forms, such as:
- Blog posts
- E-books
- White papers
- Case studies
- Webinars
- Podcasts
- Videos
- Infographics
- Quizzes
- Checklists
- Templates
- Guides
- Courses
Q: How do you create a lead magnet for your content marketing?
A: A lead magnet is a free offer that you provide to your prospects in exchange for their contact information. A lead magnet should be:
- Relevant to your audience and content
- Valuable and useful for your prospects
- Easy to access and consume
- Specific and clear about the benefit and outcome
Some examples of lead magnets are:
- Free trials or demos
- Free consultations or audits
- Free reports or analysis
- Free coupons or discounts
- Free tools or resources
Q: How do you optimize your content for lead generation?
A: Optimizing your content for lead generation means making it easy and compelling for your prospects to take the next step in the buyer’s journey. Some ways to optimize your content for lead generation are:
- Use clear and catchy headlines that capture attention and interest
- Use hooks in the introduction that explain the benefit and value of the content
- Use calls-to-action throughout the content that tell the reader what to do next
- Use landing pages that are dedicated to your offer and have a clear value proposition, benefit statement, social proof, and form
- Use thank you pages that confirm the offer delivery and provide additional resources or offers
References:
https://www.chiefmarketer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/CM-B2B-Lead-Gen-Survey-2-2017.pdf
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-create-content
https://neilpatel.com/blog/how-to-create-content-that-drives-lots-of-organic-traffic/
https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2019/03/25/how-to-create-content
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